Trespass
by Garmonbozia
Summary: 2/13  'Do Not Disturb' - the most dangerous command in the universe.
1. Chapter 1

_They took away its bed. _

_ It had been punished. Still bruised, still sore, it limped back to its room, and they have taken away the bed. Just the empty floor where it used to be, the hard straight chair and the Cleanslate wall they use to communicate with it. And when it goes to the shower all the water is been cold. Even now that it has dried off, it still shivers. _

_ It draws the chair up to the Clearslate and sits cross-legged. Sometimes it writes down words it's seen, ones that look nice, or it draws things from outside. But it's hard to do anything when it's sore and cold. It shuts its eyes and uncaps the pen anyway. _

_ Draws the Doctor's box. And it _was_ the Doctor. They can tell it what they want. They kept telling it, all that time. Eventually, so that the punishment would be over, it agreed. Couldn't possibly have been the Doctor, because the Doctor is dead. The Doctor died at Lake Silencio, and burned and all. All these things they told it, and all these things it agreed to eventually. But it saw._

_ It draws the box, with it's beacon and the funny word it doesn't know before 'box'. And it writes his name. It writes Doctor. Because it was beaten for the word Doctor, for what it saw, and they have taken away its bed, because of the Doctor, all for the Doctor, all these times it writes that name, that word. Doctor. Then finds it can't stop and covers the Clearslate in it._

_ They'll see. They'll come in and see and take it away to be punished again, and punished for lying the first time and saying it agreed and they were right. _

_ Fine. Let them come._

_ It keeps writing. The Clearslate pen makes no visible marks on the walls, but it carries on, nonetheless, determined to cover them._

_ As it goes on, beneath it's mask, something entirely new happens. It discovers its own mouth. No different, that I knows, from any of the mouths it sees moving every day. Still writing, it recalls the shape that mouths form to mean 'Doctor'. And mimics. The little tongue click of the C feels odd against its palate. The full round O at the end is more pleasant. And it recalls too that when other people make their mouths move that their chests go down too. It breathes out, making the shapes, and feels the air change shape with it. It tries again, and again, pushing more air out through it._

_The guard outside hears it. And it must, simply must, be coming from somewhere else. He looks side to side down the hall, walks to the adjoining corridor to check there, before finally looking into the room he was standing outside. _

_ And it _is_ the thing inside which is talking. A mangled, husky version of the word 'Doctor'. He radios, instantly, for assistance. "And get Kovarian up here _now_," he adds, neither hiding his fear nor trying to._

_ A voice comes back, over the radio, "_Madame _Kovarian, if you please."_

_ "Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am."_

_ "Now what are you shouting about?"_

_ "It's… It's talking, ma'am."_

_ "That's ridiculous; it couldn't possibly have a concept of _sound_, never mind speech."_

_ "All the same, ma'am, it's opening its mouth and there's words coming out. Well… One word, really, ma'am."_

_Owner arrives, with guards and some of the Tall People. It feels them coming and turns. Owner stands at the window in the door, and orders it to drop the pen. It doesn't want to, can hardly stop its hand from moving. Owner reiterates her order, though, and it does._

_ "Now turn around and face the wall. The guards will come in to shackle your hands."_

_ It wants to try the word 'no', but it hasn't had any practice at that one. It has only one word. Instead, it does something else entirely new, and disobeys. It runs up to the door, close to the glass so they will hear. It bangs on the door and tells them, "Doctor!"_

_ Why anyone would bother with this thing of moving the lips, when it makes one's throat turn so raw and sore, it just does not know._

_ "Step away from that door and face the wall!"_

_ "Doctor!"_

_ "Enough!" And this time, Owner hits back at the door. It flinches so hard it falls over its ankle and scrabbles back towards the wall. Not only faces it but kneels there with its head against the plaster, feeling the wet of the Clearslate pen, printing that word on its face. That person. _

_ It does not want to make Owner angry. Does not want to disobey. But as it sits there, with the guards coming warily in behind it, it starts to think. Thinks bad and dangerous, punishment thoughts. _

_ It does not quite know what it is doing. The first guard places a hand on its shoulder. It takes hold of it and throws him into the wall, barrels past the next two and punches another in the doorway. _

_ The Doctor lives. _

_ Its heartbeat, running and under attack, races. It steps up again when it has that thought – the Doctor lives. A Time Lord lives. And fear has such absolute power over it that no guard, no Tall Person can stop it. _

_ It falls on the next guard and grabs the electronic key from her uniform, unlocking the shackles on its forearms. The blades, fired with adrenaline, grow down short over its fingers. _

_ It runs until it reaches the spherical room, then rides the platform elevator to the top. Owner is there below it, and so are so many others, all wanting it, all trying to catch up with it. Even before the stop at the top, it leaps off and clambers into the gallery. More time for it before the elevator can return to the base._

_ Outside the transport room, it snatches a new, blank return disc, takes the chain from around its neck and hurries it on like a pendant. _

_ They would believe that the Doctor is dead. They would leave him, then, in peace, to thrive and continue. If it understood the sounds of fear it might whimper or keen. As it is, all its fear is self contained and cries in on itself, multiplying, strengthening into hate. _

_ It will bring them the Doctor and they will thank it and be kind with it. _

_ They are coming up from below now. It closes itself into the transport room, but cannot lock the door from inside. _

_ It feels for that secret inside pocket, for the disc they wouldn't let it use, the one they rejected. The one that will take it for the Tardis. But its hands are shaking and it's panicking, and it fumbles. Pulls it out and drops it, and it rolls along the floor._

_ On its hands and knees, it grabs it back._

_ The guards are at the door when it slams the little circle home into the box. _

_ Fading out is a familiar feeling._

_ The Tall People are outside, but to enter now would be suicide. It watches, and behind its mask it smiles at its success, until it shudders, and disappears entirely. _


	2. Chapter 2

It's the echo in the console room. Drive you mad, if you let it. Of course, I'm used to it. I've spent far more time on my own in here than I ever have with companions. It's just that they keep meeting, and discussing it, and sometimes they don't even know that I'm gone, so that's the overall impression people get. That I'm a social being. That I need company. Well, I'm sorry, but it's simply not true. I do plenty of things on my own. I'm perfectly comfortable in my own company. In fact, I find myself rather agreeable as a travelling companion.

But it's that _echo_. It makes you realize you're talking to yourself.

"Can't you feel any smaller?" I wait. Nothing happens. Apparently not. "You disappoint me, old girl."

I suppose she has more important things on her mind than spatial or sensational compression. We've been in the vortex too long; she's starting to struggle. Problem is I don't really know where to stop. Specifically, where to start my investigation. 'Investigation' is another very good word.

I should have a deerstalker. Deerstalkers are cool. I start towards the stairs, to go and see if I have a deerstalker. But this is how I ended up with the pipe, which didn't work out how I thought, and the truncheon, which I'm not going to use, don't remember acquiring and frankly it disturbed me to find one, and the handcuffs, which one can only assume I should return to River. I am rather beginning to suspect that these have been distractions, and that I have accepted them gladly.

Why is that, I wonder?

The thing is, I really do want that deerstalker now. I hover mid-step on the top stair, torn between this genuine desire, and the knowledge that I've been distracting myself far too long. Also, there's an odd juddering noise coming from the time rotor.

I think of River, and what she's done to my last two hats, regardless of cool. I can't put a deerstalker through that.

"Right, then," and I clap my hands, not just to show that proceedings have really begun, but to call myself out of that yearning trance, "what have we got?"

"We have a thing that can walk in and out through walls, but that doesn't narrow it down all that much, that could be species or technology or any old thing, so that's _out_. It kills Time Lords, or it wants to steal the matrix, but then again, who wouldn't, so that doesn't help me either. We have the murder weapon, crafted from Tirinnanoc ash, which can be traced, certainly, and is in all likelihood my best bet. Yes, that's it, wonderful idea. Go and look at that, find out who might have some, run that down, great.

Haven't done it. Why haven't I done it?

Seriously. I'm still just standing here. I know where I have to go and when I have to be there and yet, haven't done it.

Because the last few days have been strange and fairly terrible, and all of it hangs on me like lead and antimatter. The fact that I've taken the telephone off the hook weighs heavy too. Stars look dimmer. Burnt out. And, just like that, I know where I'm going.

"Let's go, you and I," I tell my toiling, beautiful machine. "Let's get away from it all."

Honestly, I think if I'd asked her to stop in the heart of a star she would do it, just to stop. I didn't, though. It's one of the easiest stops in all of existence and history.

Since there is nothing in it, it has no official name. On any given star map, it is about a square centimetre of perfect blankness. Which doesn't look like much on paper, and is very useful indeed when you're trying to pin up a star map with thumbtacks. Out here, in real life, it is a world quite large enough to accommodate the loneliness of one small, single-occupancy Tardis. All the stars that one might want to look at are tiny and distant, spots of light through the thumb-tack holes in the big black map.

Unofficially, it has been variously called Peace, Madness, Solitude and the Hole In The Universe. None have yet looked out at it and knocked their head on glass and sighed, "Just tonight. Please, just tonight."

I have not landed, but am adrift in a vacuum. Nothing waits beyond the door, pleasant or otherwise. It is the one place in the universe where, theoretically, I cannot be disturbed. There is a great deal of relief to be gained from just this.

"Tardis, I shall take dinner in the Deco lounge, short of a fiery apocalypse I do not wish to be disturbed, and if we do not already have a Deco lounge we'd better have by the time I get there. All streamlined, and statues holding the ceiling up. And with a Lempicka on the wall, I like her, haven't seen Tamara in years now. And an eight-millimetre projector."

Hours pass. Everything is going well. I have eaten. Abbott and Costello have met Frankenstein's monster, improved his quality of life and moved on, which I can't help but respect. They are now accepting private investigatory work from a boxer. I suspect the boxer is about to become invisible, and I am happily waiting to be proven right.

The film ends. Rather abruptly and before I know anything for sure. Cuts out. The projector has apparently stopped working. So I set down my cola and popcorn and look it over. It has, apparently, been switched off at the power point. I sonic it back on, and it switches off again.

"Is that you, old girl?"

The lights gutter. My Lempicka disappears from the wall. And the room, then, starts to feel smaller. Not in the way I wanted earlier in the console room. In a way where it might, just slightly, be closing in on me. Might, just slightly, be about to disappear. "Oh, no-no-no, no, darling, please, don't, not-"

"-Now." This, I find myself addressing to the monitor. The Deco lounge, whether it was already there or was new tonight, is gone. I have been placed back in the console room, which is thankfully the exact size it was when I left it. "Not to be disturbed, I said! Tamara de Lempicka, I said! Vintage comedy, I s…"

I don't mean to trail off. That's a bit too vintage comedy, for me. But as I was scolding her I noticed a reading on the monitor which should certainly not be there.

'Two life-signs', it says.

"That's not possible," I tell her, but nothing changes. Stubborn old thing. But it really _is_ impossible. That life-sign was not there when I went downstairs to eat, and could not have come from anywhere outside. I decide to challenge her, pulling the monitor round over the typewriter. As slow as I can type it, "Analyse life-signs."

First sign identified – Doctor.

Second sign analysis – unknown.

"What _is_ the matter with you? I mean, _really_, of all the nights to make me come up here and fix things-" In all of this, I am taking the sonic from my pocket and finding the setting. There are firewalls and passkeys for the Tardis setting. Can't have just anybody doing the work on her, can I? "When was the last time I asked you for a night off, I suppose, is the main thrust here…"

Again, I am forced to trail off, because the sonic would appear to be in cahoots with my poor mad darling. Can't find a thing wrong with her.

So, just to be sure that I'm right, I request a breakdown on that second life-sign.

She's working on it when the second life-sign makes itself really quite apparent. I see it first distorted in the contours of the time rotor, and so it is not immediately familiar.

Then it starts to come around the console. A white mask, with large round eyeholes rimmed in black. Close enough, this time, that I can see a pair of pale eyes beyond them. The same loose, dark clothes. Same bluish, organic stakes sliding down out of the sleeves.

Between greeting this creature and apologizing to the Tardis, I choose the latter. The one which will never willingly try to kill me.

I move sideways, trying to keep the console between us. "You've come a long way. Brave of you too, to come and visit me, after the last time we… nearly met." I say that, despite being very aware of moving backwards down the stairs. It jumps at me then and I scatter, putting the rail between us. Now that it's started it doesn't want to stop, and drives me backward by inches with little thrusts and jabs. I get the distinct impression that I'm being toyed with.

"Well, go on, speak to me! Who and what and _why_ are you? And on that last point let me clar-" It lunges at me, the arm stretched long, so fast and so close that I have to cross my eyes to watch the blade pass my nose, "-ify. Why are you here, why did you kill the Keeper and why haven't you killed me yet, if you're so _great_?"

It would appear to have stopped. It stands, with its feet square to its shoulders, its mask shaded dark by the back-light from the coolant system underneath the console. And it's let me get all the way up back up the stairs, in front of the hallway that will bring me back downstairs out of its way.

"Something I said?"

Its right arm lashes out, and the blade attached slices clean through one of the pipes. Coolant splashes down and starts to spread around its feet, and in high-pitched kettle whistles, the Tardis screams. It hops, almost gingerly, out of the puddle. There are words coming out of my mouth which even I don't understand, but I do know that I mean it.

It shakes its feet dry and starts to climb the stairs. Towards me again. Blue coolant still rolling off the end of the blade, dripping.

"Right, that's it, _you_, whatever you are, have crossed the line that broke the camel's back, or something like that, bloody humans, some strange phrases, but the _fact remains_, you are in real trouble now, and make no mistake." It is on the top stair. I raise up the sonic and point it.

Nothing happens.

It flies at me, bounding forth off one foot. This time it does not intend to miss. And so I turn and run.

But that doesn't mean it's not in trouble. It's in _worlds_ of trouble. Once I figure out how to make those terribly inconvenient stabbing motions stop.


	3. Chapter 3

She has been beautiful, always, and always unreliable. Kind, yes, and benevolent, thoughtful, understanding of me, in all my mistakes and petty cruelties, always. Always brave, ready for the fray at a moment's notice, loyal, and stoic under attack. Wild as a tiger and smart as Sunday best. She is usually right.

Oh, alright, always. Always right.

Always; she has always been _always_.

Never before has the Tardis been an unfriendly place. At least, never to me. Then again, I never usually let her cry.

She is in pain. Her walls seethe with it. The sounds within them are universal; she needs to words to scream. It is all I can do to keep ahead of the killer at my back, but every strike that misses me hits her, wound after vicious wound punched into her walls.

She'll die, you know. I'm trying not to think about it, but that's where this is headed, and now that I've thought about it I can't help but think about it, and it is the _thought_ which gives me the moment of sudden bravery, or insanity, to turn around. It takes me a moment to catch my breath. I'm not ashamed of this. On the contrary, I am _proud_ to be breathless, for it shows just how very rarely I ever have to run from anything. My breathlessness is a mark of my intelligence and cunning and capability, and a mark of respect to my pursuer that it has been able to push me to this. What I _am_ ashamed of, is the way I find myself hanging on the corner of the hallway, trying not to slide down.

When I stopped, it stopped. It's at the other end of the corridor with it's masked face tilted to one side, flexing its fingers, still shifting from foot to foot. No sign of breathlessness. Yes. Well. I'm nine-hundred and twelve, and I very much doubt _it_ will be in such good shape at my age.

This is all besides the point. The point is, my Tardis is dying. And this thing in front of me, it will become a killer twice over if she does. Also, this thing will still _be_ here, if she does.

"What kind of mad kamikaze are you?"

I can't see why it would answer. It hasn't made a sound so far, not a squeak. Which is unnerving and really rude, in somebody else's home. Just because it's trying to kill me doesn't mean it can't be polite about it. There's a man in Stormcage with River who used to send flowers to the funeral when he killed somebody, which seems to me a much more agreeable way to go about things, not that I've ever given that very much thought at all.

Anyway, it doesn't get a chance to answer me.

The Tardis groans, and begins shutting down the non-essential functions, trying to conserve energy. First to go is the gravitational field normalizer. Which means no more dancing on the ceiling without even knowing it. The floor beneath our feet becomes one wall of the pipe we are both tumbling down like so much penthouse laundry. The thing is falling below me, and faster than me.

Suddenly it's not such a bad thing that I needed my little rest; I am falling along the wall, which makes it much easier to reach out and grab one of the ledges that used to be hallways. I stop, dragging myself up. It is maybe four storeys below that the thing finally hits bottom. You, being a sensible person with the same intuitive grasp of physics that developed with the first monkey to fall from the first tree, would perhaps expect this to be something of a setback for any kind of creature. I expect that. I watch over the edge, and see it lying there on its back with its arms flung out at the sides, and wonder if it might not be… _incapacitated_, shall we say.

Not that I'd ever wish another living creature harm, you understand.

It lies there a moment. Then rolls its head up from the side, shakes off the daze of its little bump with the mass-velocity equation, and gets back on its feet. Looks up and sees me.

And uses to those long wicked blades it has as picks, to climb my Tardis. Every foot it climbs is another pulse of pain. _I _feel it. On every side, in every inch of her. Terrible thing about machines, about any machine; one cog, one carburettor, one corridor, one squishy pink organ damaged, and the entire system suffers. In an odd way, after so long together, I too am part of her system.

"Listen to me," I gasp. Not 'gasp', no, nor 'pant' neither. None of those old, out-of-shape words. Manage. I manage, "We can get rid of it. Not me alone or you alone, old girl, but both of us. I need you."

But all around me, in the low emergency lights and the thin air and the shudder that runs through her now and then, are the signs that, more than anything, she needs me. After all, I was the one eating lobster while something, _somehow_, secreted itself aboard my home, my old girl, and started tearing her guts out.

Wrong place, wrong time. That keeps happening, doesn't it? Me not being where I'm needed.

That thing, that murderer, it's closer again – I can hear the metal thunks of its climb, and it must be almost here.

I lower myself into the next former room, now a sky-lit dungeon in the new configuration. There's no visible lock on the door, but the sonic seals it.

The sonic, also, should be able to have the Tardis delete the room. The same way she brought me back to her earlier. I will be gone. The thing will be looking for me. I will be in the console room, fixing the coolant system and figuring out what exactly that creature is. Just a general species would do. One weakness for it, that's all I need.

I have ruled out exhaustion and long falls.

"Delete…" I say it because it hasn't happened. Flash the sonic at it a couple more times. "Delete. _Delete_."

But she has nothing in her but to groan, to reel. All non-necessary systems have completely shutdown.

This is my fault. This is because I couldn't pick a place to stop. She was already overworked going into it, already in recovery. A damaged coolant flow, any other day, would be no worse for her than a chesty cough, to put it in human terms.

Today it is no worse than a chesty cough in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic car-crash.

And the killer, too, must have heard me when I spoke out in frustration. There had been footsteps on the ceiling. They have stopped by the door. Then it stomps, and yes, I'll admit, I jump. Stomps again, and fights with the handle, and tries gently coaxing for a moment, before finally stabbing again. But only the point gets through. Wiggles trying to pull and strains trying to lever. But the old girl's doors hold out, long enough at least for me to get away; it creep into the ventilation and slide away.

It seems almost impossible, but it is only a moment before I hear those footsteps again. My attacker, it seems, is not worried about being heard, about my knowing that it's there. I am, though. I'm being _very_ quiet. And somehow, still, it's right here with me.

I kick off the grille into another room. As I crawl out, at floor level, the thing drops down from the ceiling. Between me and the open door.

It does not immediately launch an attack. It stands, looking loose and almost weightless, swaying like a thing in water. Perfectly alert, perfectly comfortable.

"Alright," I tell it. "Alright, you've got me. Fine. I am bowing before a superior being, and I can call you that because you haven't called yourself that. This is a conclusion I have come to, and therefore I am not too proud to accept it. You win. Tag," I tell it, "I'm it."

It steps over to me, at it's own pace. I lean my head back against the wall, stretching out so it can see both heartbeats. Get a good look, take a good aim. It has been a worthy opponent, this much is true.

It studies me. I try to get a look into the eyes behind the mask, but the angle is obscure and shadow dark, and I am distracted by the right arm raising up, crooking behind the head, ready to get a long, strong swing. One heart first, let the regeneration kick in, then get the other.

I think of the Keeper, with no new lives left to fall back on, and how one heart was enough.

The blade comes down.

I bring up the grille from near my feet and trap the last four inches of the blade. That's how far it goes before it gets too thick to fit. Where it stops, the very tip is just tickling my shirt. I twist before it can pull back, and trap it again, and now the blade is wound through the grille. This gives me enough leverage to pull the thing down on my foot and throw it into the corner. Enough to get up and out of the room. I seal the door just as it throws itself against it.

"Ha! Superior being," I scoff. "You don't even know where you are! Chasing me, trying to keep me away from my console, yeah, well, _you_, my whiteface friend have _no_ idea where that console is anymore, do you?" It's not listening. It throws itself against the door again, leaping, all of its weight barrelling forward, so that even through the door it knocks me back.

That's when I realize I probably don't have a lot of time before it manages to escape again.

"…Bye then."


	4. Chapter 4

"Shut down everything not keeping us and our guest alive," I tell the console room, "and get me a voice interface."

The echo suits me better this time. It is the echo, not of me inanely muttering to myself, but of me taking charge. I will _not_ be held hostage in my own home any longer, and said home shall suffer no more from the unwanted presence of an unwanted guest. It's unseemly, for one of my status.

I sort any immediate issues as regards temporal stability and spatial decompression and imminent implosion of ourselves and the nearest neighbouring galaxies at the console. A little static flares on the other side, the stuttering start of a new hologram. She tries, once more to give me the image of myself to converse with.

"Listen, gorgeous, I know you're exhausted but-" It stutters again, and on the edges of the new image I catch just a hint, just a suggestion of a mane of gold-brown curls, "and I'll stop you there. Can't you do that woman that was you for a while?"

Either she misunderstands, or no, she can't, and delivers the next best thing; we settle again on the image of the young Pond.

"Ah, yes, now _you'll_ tell me how it is… whether or not I want to hear it… I'll be below, fixing the pipes, but don't think I'm not listening to you, Amelia. Now, two things-"

"Negative."

"…I haven't asked you anything yet."

"Unable to process multiple requests at this time."

"That bad, is it?"

I have been trying not to remember that glass floor that I have now. When I first saw it I was very impressed. Like walking on water, I thought, and I've always wanted to try that. Proper water, not like out in the eighth system where it's that thick everybody can do it. And the glow up through it bouncing off the walls and it's all great. Now, though, I have to look down, and see that slit pipe, and the inch-deep, shifting layer of fluid on the floor. Still very pretty, of course. Much the way certain rainforest frogs are, in all their dangerous rainbows, when so much as skin contact can be lethal.

"Yes," says Tardis Amelia, just that bluntly.

"Are you aware of our visitor, right now?"

"Unknown life-sign currently locked in Blank Room nineteen-one-hundred-four A."

"Set yourself to alert me of any change to that."

Amelia gutters. The lights gutter. My most immediate thought is for my poor Tardis. There is, however, also my poor universe to consider, when the black hole caused by an imploding Tardis might eat it all up like a good little negative singularity at school dinners, but I don't wish to dwell on that.

"Confirmed, Doctor."

"Well done, Amelia. Now, retrieve earlier request for subject analysis on the unknown life-sign." She goes to it. I get up to my shoelaces in coolant underneath the console. There's a box attached just above which should, theoretically, contain everything necessary to repair the core line. It is a rather small box. It has been there since the last time she was serviced which, considering the only place in the universe that ever serviced a Tardis was the Transdimensional Harbour of Gallifrey, was some time ago.

At some point, perhaps some earlier repair too trivial or traumatic to remember, I have used the contents of this box. I have, however, in my infinite wisdom and foresight, replaced them, with some electrical tape, three one-litre bottles of standard twenty-first century potato-based alcohol, a canister of liquid nitrogen and a large hypodermic syringe. And a rag, too, to dry the piece of pipe before applying the tape. _Infinite_ wisdom and foresight. I am only glad that the murderous Thing's weaponry is so keen – the slice is clean and straight.

"Analysis retrieved," Pond says. I tell her to go ahead, but she doesn't recognize the command. I take the roll of tape from between my teeth and say it again. "Genetic breakdown for unknown life sign indicates a seventy-five percent match to standard Earth human."

Since I am drying off the strangled aorta of my transport, my only shell against the billions of lightyears of dead space beyond the door, the full implications of this perhaps do not quite reach me. I dismiss this, almost, as coincidence, and request a breakdown of the rest.

"Twelve-point-seven-two percent match to unqualified lifeform, Tirinnanoc Ash."

"The same stuff as the blades that killed the Keeper."

"Yes."

"That's part of its actual biology?"

"Yes."

"Right. And the other thirteen-point…" I know the number. I do. I know how much is left out of a hundred when you at up seventy five and twelve point whatever it was. I only stopped because it is much harder than you might think to match up the two ends of a pipe and create an airtight seal with electrical tape and nobody to hold it for you. It's not that I'm old or exhausted because I'm not. Not by Time Lord standards.

"Thirteen-point-two-eight percent, Doctor."

"Yes, _thank you_, Pond. What of that?"

"Unknown. Possibility of non-genetic modification." I consider that; that may at least partially explain its relentlessness, the apparent invulnerability, the emotional unresponsiveness. I consider that while mixing, in the shell of the awfully-small box, a potent mix of earth vodka and liquid nitrogen. The liquid nitrogen keeps the engine cool, the vodka keeps it from freezing. I can't remember who taught me this. The potent mix of liquid nitrogen and vodka may be responsible for this. Sadly, River and Jack are dead-tied, fifty-fifty, as possibilities.

"Doctor?"

"Yes, Amelia Jessica The Tardis Williams Pond?"

"I have detected a possible database match for the unknown lifeform."

"Well, they do chip these mongrels when they catch them…" None of that was a command, and she's not like the real Pond; she won't go on unprompted. "Well, let's hear it."

"Genetic catalogue matches database entry, 'Little Ghost'."

I was on tiptoe when she said that, injecting the pipe from the top with as much replacement fluid as it will take. I stumbled and nearly undid all my good work, my inch thick good work, with the tape.

"You're kidding," I tell her. _Tell_ her. Even though I know she physically cannot kid, it is not in her software, that is the only acceptable explanation for what she just said.

She, being both Tardis-like, in her lack of patience for my denial, and Pond-like, in her utter bluntness, says, "No."

After a moment, I beg her, "_Please_?"

"No."


	5. Chapter 5

It makes sense, I suppose.

The Death of the Keeper, capitals intentional, is Gallifreyan legend. Was, while we could still have legends. The Little Ghost is Gallifreyan folktale.

We made jokes about the Keeper. Withered old hag, useless, hateful of children, but nothing to really be scared off. We'd rap on the doors of the archive and run before she could get there.

And then, later, after dark and after lights out in the Academy, we'd tell each other stories about the Little Ghost. And never be scared, no, not ever, not us. Not ever say we were scared. And all lie very quietly in the dark, hoping nobody else would notice that we couldn't sleep. Scared? We shook.

They said, in the stories, that the Little Ghost could walk through walls. That the Little Ghost matched no known genome in the universe. That it was a single, perfect lifeform, immortal and indestructible and eternal. You know, the kind of things children say to scare each other. That time, to it, was just another wall. That it would find you, though you hid in the darkest and most distant corners of the universe.

The stories said it had no ears to hear you beg for mercy, and no tongue to grant it even if it did.

That, rather than arms, it had great blue scythes.

That these were curved at the end, to get up in between your ribs and kill you dead in both your hearts.

The Little Ghost, however, was just that. A ghost. A scary story told by torchlight, and somebody listening out for passing instructors. Usually me, who had the bed closest to the door. Because in the sudden dark, cut off in the middle of a Little Ghost story by footsteps coming too close by, getting to the far end of that room could be a thing kin to hell.

Whenever some diplomat, or one more reckless, went out into the universe, into time and didn't return, it was the Little Ghost.

Because with the twin blades for your two hearts, and no ears to be defeated by sonic technology, and its mastery of times and spaces, the Little Ghost was custom-built to kill Time Lords.

No, 'murder'; we were going with 'murder', weren't we?

It got the Repairman at an emergency summit just prior to the first great war. At a break in the heated negotiations, he retired to an antechamber to level out. They found him bled and peaceful, both hearts pierced. It got the Rogue when she was visiting a dying friend in hospital. Late night renditions of that story were usually topped off with some irony about the friend surviving, some finger-waggling supernatural implication about trading off regenerations. It got the Soldier when he was hitching home on a cargo ship, having already made it through one of the Sontaran campaigns. Depending on the teller, the Little Ghost might have stayed aboard the ship then, and seen Gallifrey for itself. I would ask, then, why it hadn't stayed to kill us all. Found the answer that a massacre 'wasn't its style' rather unsatisfactory, actually.

It got the Keeper in a cave known only as The Cursed Place, the exact co-ordinates of which are lost now to even the Time Lords' matrix, as she selflessly waited to meet with one of her own at the height of the second Universal War.

It did, didn't it?

When they tell her story, or would have were they not all dead and gone, they will say the Doctor couldn't save her. And when they tell, or would have told, the story of me, they'll say I captured and destroyed, exorcised, if you will, the Little Ghost. For the Keeper, of course, no other reason. Not because I'm thinking now of me and all those other boys, children, those rows of beds. What they would have said, what they would think of me if they could ever have known. The fact that they're gone now, and that there are no more little boys to take their places.

Definitely not because the idea that it might be here, in my Tardis, after me, may give me nightmares for some time to come, because it won't I don't know why I even said that. That was all a very long time ago, and I was never one of those impressionable boys who jumped every time he was tapped on the shoulder, that wasn't me, that was the Timekeeper. Me, I haven't had a nightmare about the Little Ghost in long, long centuries, completely slipped my mind until today and-

"Doctor?"

"Yes, Tardis Pond." I do not say this too quickly or in slightly too loud a voice.

"Systems functionality returning."

"Very good."

"Now processing multiple requests, Doctor."

"Well, put the heating back on, would you? Freezing in here, and my trouser cuffs are damp and-"

"The life-sign qualified 'Little Ghost' is moving, Doctor."

"As in pacing around that one small room like a caged animal, frustrated but otherwise contained?"

Being, as I explained previously, both Tardis-like and Pond-like, she says, "No."

"Why wasn't I informed?"

"You were informed I was unable to process multiple requests."

"_So_ bloody Scottish. Alright, where is it?"

"In the corridor to your left, at distance twenty yards-" Before I can so much as look to see, "Nineteen yards."

No time to think. No time to be afraid of anything, not that I am. No time to do anything more than tell her, as I leave the room. "Shut yourself off behind me. Recuperate. I'll… _deal_ with this." I set one foot outside of the console room. In that instant, she puts doors where there were no doors before, and the doors seal into walls.

The Little Ghost comes around a bend in the corridor. I resist the urge to turn and bang on those walls and demand to be put in behind them until the nasty little thing goes away. Just about.


	6. Chapter 6

There is a moment when, like cowboys at a showdown, we stand square with each other, each cautiously eyeing our opponent, gauging, sprung, fingers flexing. Except that any moment now someone is about to shout, 'Draw'. The Little Ghost already has its weapons ready, and I have nothing to draw.

The last time I told it it had won, it was a trap. I was ready for it last time. Now, I am standing with my back to the sealed new doors, and what a bright and beautiful idea of mine they were, of the console room. Now, it strikes me that those blades, which could go so easily through me, can probably go deep enough into that to stick, and I'll hang pinned, like the Keeper, like some incredibly rare moth.

It doesn't quite take a step towards me. It just leans suddenly onto its front foot, teasing, testing. But it looks to me like it's about to lunge and my breath catches.

That's it. That's when it starts walking.

They tell you never to show fear, don't they? I should have thought about that. It's just it's been a while since I've had the chance. Not in such a definite, immediate, peril-of-life way. In the imminent-explosion, hostile-race, threatened-companion way, yes, _all_ the time, fine. Fear is the _base state_ on the Tardis. But those are all things I can fix. I'm alright, so long as there's something I can _do_ about it.

Slowly, one foot in front of the other, watching me to gauge if I'm going to make a break for it. Looking for any more ventilation grilles, no doubt. It believes, or at least thinks there's a possibility, that I might be about to trap it again. I have proven myself an opponent to it, and now it is wary. Which is about all I have against it. So I do not move. It suspects that I am trying to lure it to this wall; I can see the eyes behind the mask dart off me from time to time and up into the corners.

This is all the stand-off I have. There should be an idea. A big, perfect, beautiful idea that will work and makes everything better and all is right and I'll take the Tardis back to Earth for tea and scones. No, not scones, couldn't look a scone in the eye again yet.

This is not the time to think of Scone.

I think it saw me thinking about Scone, rather than about any kind of trap. Caught that little moment of distraction that told it I have less than nothing. Because the last slow step turns hard and springy, and it has about twelve yards of run-up. It is pulling its arms back, clearly planning on getting me swift and sharp on either side of the chest. And I can't move. I try to imagine Pond standing behind me, tugging at my arm, _needing_ me to think of something, but it doesn't work. I am all too aware that behind me there is only the wall.

This is terror? Actually? Companions do this all the time? Oh my God, how can they _stick_ it?

So, as a sort of last gasp of reflex before I regress entirely and curl up with my arms around my head, I raise my hand, palm out, right to it and rage at it, "Stop!"

Nothing, and the last step throws it flying over those last few feet and _nothing_ pierces my mild-mannered and relatively innocent-except-that-one-little-timelock-thing flesh and nothing bears down on me grinning as I don't die.

Wait. That means nothing happened.

I said stop, and it stopped.

Finally, I peel my eyes back open. It stopped on the spot when I said that. It's sunk low, knees bent, and leaning away. Ready to attack if it can, but just, for now, too cagey to try it. Wonderful. I'm not dead, and it stopped, and I'm not dead. I said that twice because I am very very pleased about it.

But it _does_ mean I have to think of something else to say.

"Right," I begin, but stop again to swallow the lump in my throat and that sort of cotton-wool and sand sensation out of my mouth. Fear really is just a series of distastes and indignities inflicted on anybody weak enough to feel it. There must be some planet where they can have it removed. Must look into that. For the companions, you understand. Later, though. "_Right_, Little Ghost, if in fact that is your real name-" I point at it, and it flinches bodily, from the ankles up. The eyes, then, follow my finger, and experiment with leading them as I go on. "_I_ am the last of my kind. Which means that if you're about to kill me, you'll technically be responsible for genocide. That would be nice, actually, it would take the title off me, now that I think about it, albeit on a technicality."

I now have it looking up to the extreme top left. As its eyes disappear back into its head, it realizes what I'm doing. And the eyes come back and focus flaming and hard on me. Rather than sink back against the wall again, play the good little victim, whimper and so forth, which I really should considering I have _no_ idea where I'm taking this, I step forward.

The Little Ghost jumps again, scatters back a couple of steps like a puppy I've just threatened to kick. As it leans back, its loose tunic falls against its chest. And even through all that, I can see its heart pounding a bid for freedom out of its chest. Suddenly it doesn't matter where I was taking the genocide argument. I take another step. It doesn't retreat again, but neither does it lunge.

"You're… you're terrified of me." Just to test the theory, I start forward, as if I'm going to chase it, and say to it, "Rahr!" It moves back a step or two, then raises up its blades; trying to give a show of force, trying to put me back on the defensive, or rather lack-of-defensive. But I'm not falling for that. Oh, no. Not me! Not the one Time Lord the Little Ghost fears. "Rahr!" I say again, and it turns to run. Picking its battles, probably. Thinking it'll hide somewhere until it can sneak up on me, in its cowardice.

You know who I wish was here? I mean, aside from all the Ponds and River and everybody to see the Little Ghost _running_ from a Time Lord? The Master. Arrogant little trophy face with his 'I'm not scared' and 'You lot are all yellow, ha ha ha' like he wasn't hair-close to wetting the bed like the rest of us, _God_, I wish he was alive for this.

It runs from me. I follow at a walking pace.

But I do not intend to get complacent. Get easy-going about it, let it sneak up on me or damage my Tardis again. That could all happen very easily. Except there won't be time for that. Neither myself nor that Little Ghost, that uninvited guest, that murderer, is going to have time to get lazy.

That does not mean I can't take a very small moment to enjoy the sensation of no longer being scared of it. I can hear it running away. Alright, down my corridors in my home, but I can almost forgive it that, because it is, at least, running away.

Now that I no longer fear it, it seems ridiculous that I ever did. After all, it's name is descriptive; it _is_ rather small, by alien menace standards, something like a compact human. It _clearly_ can't walk through walls. And as for existing for the sole purpose of despising and destroying the Time Lords in total, well, frankly I laugh at that concept now. I laugh right out loud in fact, right there in the corridor.

It is as I throw my head back, to get a better ring on the sound in case it's still listening from somewhere, that I know what I'm going to do. To catch it properly this time. To apprehend the perpetrator. I stop laughing when I think that, being reminded of why I'm even considering this.

The blessed idea, about three minutes later than usual, came when I caught sight of one of the dark, unobtrusive little speakers up at the ceiling.

My dear old girl has many mouths, for announcements and alarms and, occasionally, for saying 'boo' to guests I may be spying on from the console room. Or 'rahr'. Now that I've tried 'rahr' and found it both enjoyable and effective, I may give it a brief trial run as a 'boo' replacement strategy.

Planning as I go, I take the sonic out from my inside pocket. "Seeing as you've been so stunningly useless in this endeavour, thus far," I tell it, "It's time to prove yourself indispensable once more." I sheepishly place it under my shirt and, for eight seconds, record. Then I play it back to myself. Very low, but very clear, it has recorded my heartsbeat. The four beat bar, eight times over.

I point the sonic at that glorious little speaker I did so well to notice, and it plays. Just on that one, but I'm sure I could spread it out if I needed.

Following the last turn I saw it take, I look again for the Little Ghost. So much more fun to be doing the chasing, after all. As I go, I sonic the speakers, and for eight seconds behind and ahead of me, twin heart beats follow round me like an army. "Ghosts," I call allowed, "for a Ghost. How many have you _murdered_, Little Ghost? How many hearts have you made your own? They're all here, you know. All beating in these walls, in all the world around you."

A banging sound. Flat, slapping flesh against metal noises. I follow it. At the end of the trail is what should be another entrance to the console room. I think it knows that too; there are punctures and gouges in the wall. But now the Little Ghost has given up on its blades and is just pounding, like one seeking sanctuary on holy ground.

"Little Ghost," I shout. Nothing happens, nothing changes. "_Oi! _I'm talking to you. Get all scared again, Little Ghost, I liked you better that time." Nothing. No reaction whatever.

_The Little Ghost,_ says a voice from a thousand years ago, _has no ears to hear your pleas for mercy._

And don't all legends grow out of a few true facts?

I readjust the settings on the sonic, and point again. This time the speaker doesn't play the sound exactly as recorded, but dials it down so low and turns it up so low that the floor shakes in time, plays the drumbeat of the double heart.

The Little Ghost does what I refused to do, and curls against the wall with its arms over its head. Quickly, I step back around the corner where it won't see me.

When the recording ends, it checks warily around. Then gets up and runs like the fires of hell are licking its back. As it comes out to the junction that hides me, I set off the speaker behind my head, and the Little Ghost instantly turns the other way.

"Ghosts for the Ghost."

It's faster than me, but I can keep up enough to guide it. To bring it upstairs, over the console room, behind the gallery where there are three speakers on the corridor. While it runs from one, I set off the one in front of it, and as it scuttles back I set off the one over its head.

Creatures of lower intelligence, you see, are easily tricked. Especially when they're scared. Instinct takes over and rational thought disappears. Rational thought might question the wisdom of running through an unknown door into a room with no other exits in enemy territory. Instinct says, I can hear their hearts out here, but beyond that door there is quiet.

The Little Ghost runs straight into my medical room, realizes what's happened and turns to find the door sealed behind it. And me there, looking in. It cowers from me, as I point the sonic through the glass at the speakers in the corners of the room, one at a time. The eight second recording plays in a round. By the end of it, the Little Ghost is a shuddering ball in the centre of the floor, and I have activated, from outside, the release of a heavy sedative gas into its atmosphere.

That's why the medical room has no other exits. Not even a vent. Don't want this stuff getting into the main air supply, even by accident. I try to think what time I'm in, whether or not the stuff's been banned yet. It varies from planet to planet, anyway, and it's just to discourage the recreational use. Won't do my dear Little Guest any harm.

Well, I say that, but there have been a number of reports that might suggest… No, no. It'll be fine.

Well.

…Ask me when it wakes up.


	7. Chapter 7

It occurs to me that the astute listener might question _why_ my medical room is equipped with a sedative gas release which (I have checked, and am informed) is absolutely, one-hundred percent, totally legitimate except a tiny little bit. And I could answer them. I really could. But I'd rather know what an astute listener who found that odd might think of one of the flat metal slabs being equipped with four shackles, a collar and an upper body restraint.

And I'm not telling.

It was just one of those things I always knew would come in handy. That's my justification and that's the only justification you'll hear from me. It's all I need, considering that right now I am currently no longer under threat from a certain surreptitious stowaway, due to its being chained down in front of me.

I think of the helipad and am assured by this whole situation that it too shall someday soon be useful.

And, for the record, it _is_ waking up. Relatively quickly too. But then again, the trials that got that sedative banned were primarily conducted on humans, and these things do vary, species to species.

I have not yet removed its mask. I don't see why I should. If that's how it murdered, that's how it'll pay the price. The eyes beyond it start to drift open. Large and round and an extraordinary electric blue. They swim a bit, at first. Then light on me.

The pupils shrink to pinpricks. From the toes up, every muscle seems to think it is about to run. And when it doesn't go anywhere, it thrashes against its restraints. I let it. Stand back and admire its spectacular recovery time from sedation, and how long it manages to go on trying before it falls back, chest rising and falling against the steel loop over it.

I broke the blades off its arms. The ends are jagged like splintered wood, cold and strong like metal, and ooze a little like open flesh.

Even now, exhausted, it strains away, trying not to even look at me. But since it has no ears to hear the pleas for mercy, I'll have to make it. I grab it by the chin of its mouthless mask, tugging its tight dark hood up with it, and bring my face down so it can see. I know when it can see because the eyes go all wide and damp again.

"Didn't I tell you you were in very deep trouble, Little Ghost?"

It nods. Or maybe my hand makes it move its head. Either or, doesn't much matter; rhetorical question anyway.

Less rhetorical. "Now tell me who you are."

My hand has nothing to do with the way it turns its head on its side. The eyes behind the mask go dull, an utter lack of comprehension.

"Who sent you?"

It shakes its head. "Does that mean nobody or just that you're not telling me?" It shakes its head.

For a moment, my hands hover near its temples. I could, if I were so inclined, have a nose about for myself in the Little Ghost's head. It would save a lot of time and effort in dealing with an indisposed deaf-mute. It's something I never take lightly, and that more so when I can already imagine what horrors it might leave with me. It sees me hesitate. Its head lashes up at me, and behind the mask I hear teeth gnash together, snapping. So I place my hand over its face and push it back down.

"No, Little Ghost. 'Rahr' is my word now."

I walk away from it, out across the room. I am trying to think, and looking at it makes thinking with clarity and a definite moral centre difficult. Behind me, I feel it raising its head again, watching after me. All I have to do is point out behind me and it drops back like a puppet.

As it turns out, it's still difficult to think with clarity and a definite moral centre. I can think very easily of the things the Little Ghost has undeniably done, and the things too that it has probably done. I can think very easily of the things that deserve to happen to the Little Ghost. And it causes me only a very mild, negligible even, discomfort, to count the number of these which I could inflict upon the creature. On behalf of my race, you understand. Not because it tried to kill me.

A _little bit_ because it tried to kill me. Not very much.

Too easy to think of those. Down by my side, one of my hands has balled up in a fist, quite without my knowledge or permission. Now that I'm aware of it, however, there's something pleasant about the sensation. Something very right.

I force it loose and shake out my knuckles until they crack. Enough of that.

When I turn back, the Little Ghost is staring at the door, as if it can will itself out. I slip around the table and lower myself into its line of sight. The fist might have been wrong, and all the low, unspeakable thoughts of how it might suffer as I have suffered ('me and mine', I should say), but to see that same dilation in the eye all over again, hear its breathing jump up a desperate, panicked gear, smell that iron-and-sweat tang of its fear, that's right. I do not question it. Some things, when they happen, are too perfect to be questioned.

"You kill Time Lords," I tell it. It's not a question, but the Little Ghost nods, perhaps just to show it understands. "You killed the Keeper, and tried to kill me." It nods again. "_I_ am a Time Lord. Matter of fact, I'm the last one, and there might have been a couple more hanging about if it wasn't for you. You know, I always wondered, how they knew that every-Gallifreyan-that-e'er-there-was was on Gallifrey when the lock happened. Was nobody out on business? Off on a jaunt? Nobody sunning themselves on Antiphon's silvery shores? But it wouldn't have mattered, would it, Little Ghost? You would have gotten them all, eventually. Just my tough luck not to be there. On time, of course, I mean… But enough about me. It all brings us to the one big question, doesn't it, little one? Of what exactly we're going to do with you."

"_Doctor_!" The scream so loud, so sudden, so everywhere, that I cry out and jump away from the table. At first I presume the Little Ghost must have found its voice, but as that panic passes, it strikes me – that voice, the one that just yelled out my name to echo eternal through the wastes of the starless place outside, that voice had a Scottish accent.

"…Pond? Tardis-Pond?"

"Hello? Doctor, are you there? Doctor, _say_ something!"

The speakers. I was turning them on to chase the Ghost, but I never turned any of them off again. I do it now before that voice comes again, lest I end up the one with no ears to hear.

On the wall, there is a monitor, a camera link to the console room. Handy if anybody's ever up here sick or injured, as opposed to just chained to the only safe table in the only safe room. Tardis Pond is gone, as she rightly should be. No, the Pond speaking to me is a frantic face on another further monitor. She may be sealed off, but the console obviously sensed the urgency of the call and chose to connect. I press down the intercom button.

"Amelia, I'm here, what's the matter?"

"I need you here. Where are you?"  
>"You won't see me, I'm not in the room. What is it, Pond, what's wrong?"<br>"I need you _here_, Doctor, _now_. It's River."

"Oh, I know, she's escaped again, they announced it. It's alright, it's me she wants."

Pond's pretty little face furrows up, raging. "_I know_!" she cries, and turns her camera round.

There, in a twenty-first century suburban living room, my wife is holding a fifty-third century gun to her father's head.

Pond turns the camera back on herself. Lost and tearful, she says, "She's asking for you. She's lost it, Doctor, I don't know what to do."

There are seven letters in 'divorce'. None of them repeat. There are seven letters in 'wedding'. Two of them are the same, and this repetition is pretty much at the centre of the word. 'Divorce'. It rolls a little better off the tongue, doesn't it? A sort of a sweet, round sound, like a humbug. You know, there are planets where the old tying-of-hands doesn't hold.

I look over my shoulder, just the once. The Little Ghost isn't going anywhere. Doesn't even seem to know that I'm having a conversation now it isn't vibrating through the walls.

And now that I'm thinking of it, River's given me an idea.

Also, Pond is crying.

"Tell her to put the gun down, I'll be there in a minute. You're her _mother_, Pond, be _firm_ with her. Honestly, I don't have time to give parenting classes at the drop of a hat."


	8. Chapter 8

Honestly. This house. I check around, to see where they've attached the bungee cord to the Tardis. That's the only reasonable explanation for the amount of time I waste standing at the Ponds' back door. I don't even get to knock, Pond is waiting for me, and doesn't even invite me in but throws open the door and runs from it, as if expecting me to follow. Maybe the Little Ghost is human after all; they both lose any semblance of etiquette at the first sign of stress.

"Oh, _hello_, Doctor," I mutter to myself, "Thank goodness you're here, at a moment's notice, like a Labrador I've just whistled to-"

"Shut up," Pond snaps. She turns on her heel at the living room door and points inside. "Go in there, send Rory out." That's all she has to say on the matter. I'm surprised just how effective those sharp little commands are on me. Something to do with the Scottish accent, perhaps. At any rate, I go.

Rory is sitting on the sofa. River stands, with one knee up on the arm, and her gun hand propped at the wrist on the back. It's not even pointed at his head anymore, but Rory doesn't know that.

"Hello," I say since, _once_ again, nobody sees fit to address their guest. Not even a 'Hello, Sweetie'. Even then, nobody replies. I lean down, slowly, so as not to spook anybody, and look at Rory. He seems reluctant to move, except for little flickers of his eyes up to me. "Are you alright?"

There's a high-pitched noise in his throat, dry and strangled. It might be 'Yeah'.

"You can go now," I tell him.

River grins at me over his head, wiggles the muzzle of the gun into the back of his neck. "Oh, _can_ he now?" Rory, to his credit, hardly twitches. But that's a roman for you. Show no fear.

"Yes," I snap. Reaching over him, I snatch the gun from her hand, and she laughs.

Instantly, Rory stands and, still keeping his eyes fixed ahead at all times, leaves the room. All his turns are perfect right angles. He closes the door behind him. A moment later, there is a crumpling thud, a yelp from Pond, and the wet, ragged sound of him gasping.

"You are a deeply unbalanced and really quite terrifying woman."

"Thank you."

"What was the point of that?"

"Your phone was off the hook. Where were you?"

"Nowhere."

"Sounds lonely."

"Well, that was the point."

"No company, my love? None at all?"

She already knows. It's all over her question, all over her face. River _knows_, and it means enough to her that she'd make her own mother scream to bring me here.

"None whatever."

"I promise I won't get jealous."

"I promise I was totally alone."

"You're lying."

"And you're not telling me the whole story. Let's call the whole thing off." River slides over the arm. Sitting on the sofa, one leg tucked under like a little girl, she reconsiders her plan of attack. I rather think she enjoys thinking she's manipulating me. Poor, deluded dear. "Might I suggest a radical new approach?"

"Certainly."

"Openness."

"Surely not?"

"Openness, River, and honesty. You tell me what it is you're sitting there believing you know, and I'll tell you whether or not you're right."

It's a whole new gambit for her. She accepts too, though this is perhaps just for the novelty. She sits there, and in her usual one-word-too-eloquent way, describes to me something very similar to the situation which has taken up so much of my time of late. I am neither surprised nor alarmed that she knows, nor even listening. The fact that she knows does not concern me. The fact that she only lately re-escaped Stormcage and that my phone was unhooked through the duration of the aforementioned situation, and by consequence _how_ River could possibly know anything, is very much a concern.

"What a wild imagination you have, dear wife of mine-"

"There are old stories. Whispers and scraps torn off nightmares-"

"-and such a silver tongue"

"- They say it kills anything with more than one heartbeat. That puts me on the hit list."

"Oh, dear Lord, you're right! Quickly, run! Use your manipulator, I'll hold it off."

River stares at me, deadpan. "You're not funny."

"No, and neither are you. I said I was alone, I didn't say I wasn't busy."

"I want in."

"No."  
>"Then I want a <em>lift<em>."

"No."

I let myself out of the Ponds' living room then. The lord and lady of the house are in the kitchen, the former cradling a small glass of something potent and amber close to his chest, still worryingly wan and damp of brow. The latter has been stoic and quietly attentive, ministering patted arms and delicate, unnoticed kisses to the symptoms of shock.

A moment later, River is at my shoulder. "You're not coming," I tell her again.

"Just you stop me." She pushes past me and charges out the back door. Of course she does; I told her she couldn't. I charge after her and lean in the doorway, pointing down at my feet, into the house.

"You get back in here and apologize to your mother for using her distress like the telephone number of a reputable taxi firm!"

River leans from the Tardis into the house, holding onto the doorframe. "Sorry, Mummy."

"Like you mean it, please, River."

"Well, she _knows_ what it's like when you won't answer your calls."

Pond, then, in the corner of my eye, rears suddenly up and away from Rory, draws her lungs up full and cries out, "Don't you two ever take anything seriously?"

Even River jumps, and the smiles slowly fades off her face. We, both of us, look at the floor, properly chided. Though I can't help but think what a good job I did picking out that black slate flooring for in here, while I'm looking. That was a very good choice on my part.

"Sorry," River mumurs.

Stop thinking about tiles. "Yes, quite."

In a weak, but recovering, little voice, like the first mewlings of a newborn kitten, Rory pleads, "Can everybody just please stop fighting please?"

River looks up at me. She's got her 'being genuine' face on again, which means genuine is the last thing she's being when she grabs me by the braces and starts to ease me out the door. "Oh, we quite agree. In fact, we'll just go. We've caused enough trouble. I'm sure you don't even want to look at us. Really, we're so terrible, just appearing every now and then disrupting everything, how are you ever supposed to have a normal life? Come on, sweetie."

By the time I've realized what she's doing it's too late to respond. I have been pulled clean out of chez Pond and back into the dear blue box, and River is reaching past me to close the door. Even as she does, Amy is pounding on it, and somewhere beyond her, Rory is reiterating his desperate wish in longer, more protracted noises.

If I open the door again, I'll have to face Pond. Which I'm fully prepared to do. Or, rather, I will be, after another few deep breaths. I begin to take them, begin to practice what I'm going to say to her. I'm about halfway ready and the Tardis suddenly takes off.

River is at the console. I would tell her off, but she literally has me at a loss for words today.

"The _smell_," she says, "of alcohol in here!" My ad-hoc coolant. But there's no point trying to explain things rationally when she's being arch. "_What_ did you say you were doing before I called?"


	9. Chapter 9

"Honestly," River starts.

"No, I just asked for the spanner, not a comment."

"You're alone with her ten minutes and she opens a vein."

She is referring, of course, to the coolant pipe. Now that the Tardis is stable again, and while I have River with me to help, I am making that temporary repair more permanent. It was three scrapyards before we could get a standard length of twice-sublimed diamond tubing with a one-point-five inch bore. And the suggestion by my lady wife that we might be better going 'antiquing' to find it was not much appreciated either.

"My Tardis is not suicidal. Far from it. She's a sparkling dynamo of pure life energy."

"Then what happened?"

Scrapyards, antiquing, repairs. All to keep River with me. She would like nothing more than to see what I've got locked away upstairs. I have not yet questioned myself as to why I am keeping her so determinedly away. It seems perfectly, logically natural.

Because I'm worried about her. Yes, that's it. If the Little Ghost were to somehow hear her second heart, and mistake her for a genuine Time Lord of the correct vintage, River would be in grave danger. I can't allow that. Yes. That's it.

"Give me back that nut, would you?" Referring, that is, to the ones I handed her when I took the old tube out. The ones I need to fix the new tube securely in place.

"Left or right, my love?" I whip round, about to beg her pardon. She is holding them up, one in either hand, and slowly smiles. I snatch one from her and start tightening it back.

"Where was it you wanted a lift to again?"

"Oh, end of the _line_. You were the one who had so very much to do. Don't let little old me take you out of your way."

River is sitting where Pond sometimes sits. Halfway down the stairs, hanging over the rail. I turn to take the other nut from her and notice this. Notice too the slight tightness in her face, a trace, perhaps, of worry, and how it spoils her. Insofar as spoiling her is possible at all. I know what I am about to ask her, and what it implies. For what might be the first time, I look at her as a woman who I know I will someday love very, very deeply. Someday. And when that time comes, maybe then I'll stand a chance of understanding her expression.

I have been staring too long. She tries to laugh, "What?"

I swing off the handrail to sit next to her. For once, her closeness is not imposed on me, but chosen, pleasantly electric.

"River, how are you here?" She breathes in. She's about to ask what I mean, when I brought her here, when I responded to Pond's cry, etcetera and so forth. "Or rather, _why_? You broke out just as I last left you."

"Are you surprised? You weren't exactly singing 'If You're Happy and You Know It'…"

"River, how can you possibly have known what happened here since then?"

"Then it _did_ happen."

"You know it did. You do, or you wouldn't have pulled that desperate stunt with Amy."

River stands up from her stair, stepping forward. She stands, silent for a moment, with her back to me. Her head begins to turn, but not the rest of her, and I know she can't see me yet. "What would you have me do? Go and sit quietly in my cell, knock a year or two off forever with good behaviour, while you're here with a thing designed and determined to destroy you?"

I reach out and take hold of her hand. Something about the gesture surprises her. She turns back as I pull her towards me. It feels, for a moment, as if she's pulling against me, staying back. "That," I say softly, "is not what I asked you."

"Spoilers?" she breathes. The faint, uncertain voice is above me. I do not see her speak; something about the strong straight lines of her hand is new and somehow entrancing. "Please," she says, and her hand pulls from mine, out from under my eyes. I look up at her, but River's eyes are closed. "You make it so bloody _difficult_ sometimes."

All of a sudden I lose heart to question her further. I haven't the energy to tread any more water. I want her hand back, but she doesn't give it. She walks away from me, out around the coolant pipes, which are now all full and blue again. Their glow sickens in the bronze of her skin. Until she steps in something and recoils.

"There's vodka and liquid nitrogen _everywhere_."

"Leave it," I say, "It'll dry out."

"You are _not_ a bachelor anymore. I'll get a mop."

"I'm not sure there is one."

"Of course there is."

"No, we used it as a decoy for Rory that time… I forget, it was something to do with a dragon… no, it was that pyromaniac roboticist, where _was_ that?"

"There's a mop in the cupboard."

She comes back. Her boots, as she passes me, as I do not move from the stair, are damp with the mess and leave the print of her sole at my side.

"What cupboard?"

"_I'll _get it, alright?"

"Yes, love. Whatever love wants."

"Shut up."

I laugh. River makes me laugh. I'm not sure when that started but it is, now, a fact, and one which I am relatively content to accept. I know I make her laugh, but that's different. That's always felt like a bit of a court jester scenario, only I'm never aware of doing anything funny. And you can't always put it down to foreknowledge, you know, sometimes she's just laughing at me. Affectionately, yes, but all the same, it can be a little hurtful, when you don't understand.

Is that what this is? Is this me understanding something about her that I haven't yet?

No. I don't really understand anything yet. River, for the time being, comes and goes out of my life like the print on the stair. Real and shining now, clear as day while its here. But it will smudge, and it will fade and dry out. Exist flattened and frozen in memory only.

But isn't it odd, though, how long it shines now. It's the alcohol in it, of course. If it lies there much longer it'll start to stick.

Which makes me think, where on earth that cupboard could be. Because River's been gone an awfully long time, while I've sat here musing.

River's upstairs, isn't she?

Yeah, River's upstairs.

I don't shout up ahead of myself. That would be silly, then she'd know I was coming. Instead I creep up, the way she must have done. Slowly and softly.

The door of the medical room is indeed open. And beyond it, the low, lying coo, "Don't worry. You're going to be just fine, darling. Don't worry about a thing."

Without stepping forward, I can watch her reflection in the glass of the door. Moving around it on the table, stroking its hands, looking for some way to release the shackles. She won't find it, thankfully. All that time forcing a smile, muttering those words of comfort.

Then River puts her hands on either side of the Little Ghost's mask. That's when I step into the doorway and tell her, "It can't hear you."

"How can you keep it like this? It's a living thing."  
>"And a very dangerous one, so if you wouldn't mind stepping away, I'm only trying to protect you, River."<p>

"You haven't even _touched_ this mask, have you?" It rather irritates me that she is still poised to remove it. Also that she's getting self-righteous after feeding me that ridiculous lie about the mop. "Have you seen what's underneath it?"

"A murderer, River, what more do I need to know?"

"Oh, you have _no_ idea."

I would question her. But I did try to warn her she was standing too close. And leaning over it, too, holding that mask. I did try to tell her.

I see it happening. Enough time to get around that table and pull her back. The new stake that slides lightning out of the Little Ghost's arm still slices open her blouse across the stomach. After a moment, a line behind on her skin splits and runs red. Her knees weaken with the shock and I support her. "I wouldn't hold you out with no good reason, River."

She doesn't answer me. She stares strangely over at the Little Ghost, but that's all.

"Are you alright?" I ask, eventually, and for the first time she notices she's been cut.

"Yes. It's… It's shallow."

"Come on." I help her back to her feet and out of the room. She doesn't see, and I close the door before she can hear, but on the way I sonic one of the speakers back to life. The old four beat bar. I set it to repeat.

"What is it?" she asks, when she breathes again.

"It's like you said. A scrap torn off a nightmare." She leans on my arm all the way back to the console, where I put her down in my chair and stand back. It's that red, dribbling line on her stomach, I can't take my eyes off it. Everything that had already been of grave importance is suddenly urgent and immediate to boot. "Are you serious about this?" I say to her. "I mean about that thing upstairs, about what I intend for it."

She looks up. It's something like her being-genuine face, only less definitely defineable as such. More natural. Genuine. "Yes."

"Good."

She sits back. I go to the console, input a new timespace destination and take us there. In all of this, River watches me. A look of relief, perhaps, like one who has succeeded in a long and hard-fought battle.

We land. I watch her back, until she notices.

"What?"

"Well? Go on, then."

"What do you need from me?"

"Out that door. That's where you'll find the start of it."

She gets up slowly, tentatively. I follow her, so she'll know it's okay.

When River opens the door, she tries to come back inside. I'm there to hold her out. Out where a veritable battalion of Stormcage staff are waiting to take her back to her cell.

"But sweetie-"

"This is how you help me, River. I can't do it if I have to think of you too."

"No, but you don't understand, just listen, just once in your _life_, just _listen_ to me!"

I can't. They have, anyway, taken hold of her and are taking her away. Whatever she might want to say, there isn't time.

Among her welcome party, I spot High Justice Bracewell, the Governor himself. Primarily for his benefit, I shout after her, "And pull another mad caper like that again and I promise you, River, I'll divorce you!"

"No, you won't," she calls back, scoffing. "You'd never close the scissors on the bowtie!"

I laugh again. That's it again, she made me laugh. _What_ is this?

The Governor, as the little group disperses, is shaking his head, walking away. "No you don't, Bracewell! I want a word with you. About just what kind of institution you're running here."

That stops him. I'm not mad about the way he looks at me when he turns, but he stops.


	10. Chapter 10

Governor Bracewell may not like my tone, but he is bound by law to interview me privately if I have a grievance. There on the landing deck, he sighs at me to follow. For the sake of any observers, and not a little of my own amusement, I keep up the pretence.

"A prison, you call this? More like a _spa_. You know she comes here for a rest, don't you? She told me that. Peace and quiet, three balanced meals a day brought to her door? She looses pounds in here, you know. Comes here to use your exercise facilities. And your library. She said that, she did."

We are, by this point, inside and unobserved. The Governor slams the door behind us. "What do you _want_?"

I can't think what I've done to make him hate me so. When I'm being kind, I presume I haven't done it yet. My true suspicion, however, is that he's simply a distasteful little man, a rather heavy eater, with rather a few too many pustulent, flaky little warts hanging from his pendulous jowls. Give me Churchill anyday. With Winston, I am _never_ this clear about where I stand. It makes things so much more interesting.

I open my mouth to tell him, to answer the question, which _he asked me_, not two seconds ago, and he raises his hand to stop me.

"And not another word about your wife escaping. Don't you think for a second I don't know how _you_ use this place, Doctor. Like a _pound_. You pick her up when you want to play with her and drop her off when she gets in the way."

"Or too expensive, but 'pound' is a bad metaphor. They put a dog down when you drop it off there, or they give it away to somebody else. 'Pawnbrokers' might have been better, for what you were getting at. Not that I agree. Or 'long-stay car park'. All of it academic due to its being entirely erroneous and frankly, I'm offended."

"State your business…"

"Need to talk to the captain of one of your fine Teselectas, please."

"No."

"Right, should I wait over h-? No? What do you mean, no?"

"After last time?"

"I brought it back!"

"For _scrap_! And even that was charred and blackened scrap."

"…I did say please, didn't I? When I asked about now, I remembered to say please? See, the thing is, I'd like it all to be easy for us, because I'm not going anywhere until it happens."

It's all in how you say a thing. He opens the door of his office, then, and ushers me in. This, then, is where I am to wait while he gets me what I asked for.

Pond, you see, was wrong. I'm not condescending to her, it's just a fact. And I do appreciate she was under a great deal of stress at the time and probably didn't mean what she said. I can't speak for River, but I, for one, am perfectly capable of taking certain things seriously. And the Governor heard that on my voice. Sends for a Captain Holly, via intercom.

"What happened to Carter?"

"He loaned out a very intricate and expensive piece of Justice Department technology to an unknown quantity and returned it burnt and useless."

"How very unprofessional of him."

"He's building an extension the family home, spending more time with the kids. Doesn't have much choice, what with the house-arrest."

"You see what I mean, about enforced living arrangements being good for the soul?"

He trembles. His big jowly face trembles a good few seconds after the rest of him has stopped. Lifts slightly out of his seat and points one fat, red sausage finger at me and opens his mouth and, thankfully, does not get a chance to tell me off again. There's a knock at the door, and I turn in my chair to meet this Captain Holly. I want a good look at him first, to gauge if he's any match for his predecessor.

I do rather miss Carter.

What gift is customary, in that situation? Is there a particular flower, for instance, that says, 'I'm sorry I got you dishonourably discharged from the Justice Department'? Or is that the kind of thing you get engraved on… something… I must admit, I'm not good with customs. Travel too much; I'd never keep up with them all. Must ask Pond.

"Come in," the Governor calls.

Holly comes in. Tall, blonde, tiny bit gorgeous. A woman. I should stress that. I should have said that first, shouldn't I?

She sees me peering around the wing of my chair, and eyes me strangely. Which is when I realize I've forgotten all my manners and etiquette like a silly, stressed human, and jump to my feet, hold out my hand to shake hers, etcetera. She does not take my hand, but salutes.

"Hello… I'm the Doctor."

"Captain Francesca Holly." An _American_, I notice, as soon as she opens her mouth, but nobody's perfect.

"Are you, though? Or are you a big machine with Captain Francesca Holly in it somewhere?" I try to look it in the eyes to see.

"The latter, sir, but the shell is a match."

"Oh, good," I say, and only afterwards realize how it sounds. The robot has no blush reflex, but I do.

The Governor, bless his heart, cuts in. "The Doctor here seems to think he has a job requiring and deserving of Justice Department intervention. You're to go with him, assess it, and report back to _me_ before taking any action."

"Yes, sir," she says, and I'm already at the door. Because I can't be bothered dealing with him again, and because a gentleman always gets the door for a lady.

"Bye bye, Governor."

"Hurry back now, Doctor. You must know how we would so love to _keep_ you."

"Fat, _odious_, little man," I hiss. At the door, after I've closed it. Never know when I might need him on side.

"Isn't he, though?" Captain Holly says, just as softly. And close by me. I'll admit, her voice startles me. "So, General. What's the job?"

General. She called me General. Somebody else did that, just a few days ago. In the future. At the end of the war. At the start of which the Keeper was killed. The connections are there, the cycle, the loop, it's all there, but there's no explanation for it. Like a coincidence that can't possibly be a coincidence, it's just that there are bits missing.

"A dangerous, violent criminal. Needs a little… encouragement."

"Not your normal style."

And I can only wonder just what Captain Francesca Holly, who I met all of forty seconds ago, would know about my normal style. "Yes, well, it was a particularly vicious crime and there are things which it is particularly important it not lie to me about. We can skip that part about you reporting back to Governor Odious, can't we, Captain Holly?"

"Of course, but…" I turn. She's lingering, still walking, but not keeping up. Still eyeing me. I wait for her to go on. "What's the matter with you?"

"Why, what have I done?"

"You… you usually call me Frankie."

"Do I? That seems awfully familiar. Are you sure I do that? How many crew are in there with you, can you _say _that?"

Captain Holly (I can't yet quite come to terms with Frankie) slowly smiles then, seems to decide it's all an elaborate joke. And then she laughs. This leaves me at my most uncomfortable yet, and so I lead off, back to the Tardis.

I left those speakers on when I went out.

The Little Ghost is struggling in its shackles, tossing its head from side to side. I'm not sure what the object is, but it's not achieving it.

"Looks like you're doing a pretty good job of keeping it… on its toes, shall we say."

Captain Holly has these small, intelligent grey eyes. Looking in the window of my medical room at the thing before her while I explain to her what it is, what its done, why I need it to be fearful and honest at all times.

"General," she starts, and pauses, apparently considering her words very carefully. "Haven't we been here before?"

"Captain… _Frankie_, I can assure you most definitely that this entire situation is very new indeed."

To prevent further argument, I reach past her and open the door. She goes through. That happens, you know, with humans, and massive robots controlled by hundreds of tiny ones; when you open a door for them they tend to assume there was a reason why and go through them. It's very useful, I should remember it, or write it down. I close the door behind her instead, and step up to the window to watch.

Captain Holly, just because I called her Frankie doesn't mean I like it, goes to the Little Ghost. On the far side of the table. She does this apparently just so she can look hesitantly up at me, and with a jerk of her head imply that I should turn off that beating on the speakers.

I do, and the Little Ghost stops thrashing. Frankie turns its head towards her, and it goes still.

Hard to say how she knows, but Frankie (oh, that _is_ easy to get used to) places her right hand on the left hand side of her chest. Indicating to the Little Ghost that it has only one heart. She says something, but I lack my prisoner's skill at lip-reading. Ghost nods, Frankie reaches down, like River tried to, and removes the mask.

Then looks back up and me with it in her hand. She starts to move towards me. Something the Little Ghost does, something I don't see, distracts her. She stops to put the mask back on, then charges out to me.

"What the _hell_ is this about?"

"Now, Frankie, we can _talk_ about this."

"Don't call me Frankie! '_General_'? Does that even _mean_ anything to you?"

Ah. Well. She's got me there.

"I know people keep calling me General?"

She sighs, so it's almost a laugh, almost scoffing. Then, "Sh… _It_ won't lie to you, _Doctor_."

Then she does something most unexpected.

She _pushes_ me. Frankie, no, can't call her that now, Teselecta Captain Francesca Holly who apparently I have _not_ just met about four minutes ago, she _pushes_ me right across the hall and into the wall. In my _own _box, why does this keep happening to me? By the time I recover she's half way back to the gallery of the console room, and yelling over her shoulder, "I can't _believe_ I nearly got dragged into this _shit_!"

Which is frankly unnecessary and really very American of her. I don't even know why I'd be hanging around with an American again, I've learned that lesson and it just _would_ not stop flirting. That wasn't like River, you know, that was like war. That was like being a bus shelter during a hailstorm.

I wait until I hear her close the door, properly, then climb carefully back to my feet. And carefully approach the medical room. The Little Ghost is watching me, before I'm even in the doorway. Watching the spot where I'll be, and where I now am. Big blue eyes behind the mask. And I approach it slowly, careful to stay where the big shooty arm blades can't get me, behind its head. And I'm poised, like River, like Frankie (and now I can't stop with that) to lift off the mask.

And I don't.

There's a reason, but it's missing, like the other facts that make the rest of the facts make sense.

"Are you going to lie to me?" I ask it. Watch it squint and concentrate, reading my upside down lips. It shakes its head. "Ever?" Same again, strong and definite, visible, 'No'. "For the record, trying to kill me now counts as lying. Do you understand?"

It struggles. Understands most of it, but I explain again more slowly, simplifying things down.

Then the Little Ghost nods.

"Good." I step away from the table. A good, long, decent, very very safe, only not safe because still in the same room, distance away from the table. And then I take another step back. And then, using the sonic, I deactivate the shackles. Then I take another step back.

The Little Ghost starts to move. I sonic a speaker and, at the very first sound of that beating, it lies back down, exactly as it was, exactly still.

The beating stops. "Now get up," I tell it. "We have things to do."


	11. Chapter 11

I have kept the shackle about its neck, and attached a length of chain. The effect is rather that of a pet on a lead, which I'm not mad about, but there's not much I can do about it. I have it chained to the stair rail, which allows me to use the console while staying very much out of reach.

I'm not doing anything right now. I'm looking at it, and it's looking right back. I begin with something we have, until now, missed entirely.

"Hello."

To my surprise, it raises its right hand and waves.

"Ah. You _do_ understand interaction, have a concept of conversation, _manners_ you have manners, so you're not alone. You know people, you've been trained. Now listen to me-" And here I slow down again so that it can follow, "Listen carefully, Little Ghost-"

I am once again shocked to find it raise a hand. This time it doesn't wave. Straight out, palm up. 'Stop'

"What?"

It mimics the action of writing.

"Oh… yes… that would rather ease things, wouldn't it?"

I reach into my pocket and throw it my marker, then rattle around the console for a while looking for something it can write on. It's _always_ when you need something that it just vanishes somewhere into the transdimensional depths of the place. I never _write _anything, why would I-?

Ah. My little notebook. Top pocket. The one I can't remember why I carry it. I carry it for communicating with mutes, obviously.

Even behind the mask, I can see the eyes roll when I take it out, after flapping about looking for paper ten minutes.

"Don't you start. Don't you think just because you're sitting on my stairs you're a companion, you're a prisoner, and that very deep trouble I talked about that's still to come."

It writes, and throws the notebook back to me. 'Wat is Little Gost?'

I have no time for semantics, or to sit and tell it stories. I say, "You are. Now listen very close and do not interrupt me again. Where did you come from?"

It flips open my notebook and works busily with the marker for a moment, then throws the book back. "White place". In English. Looking at me, and the eyes are frank, not lying. Not even genuine or being-genuine, just what it is. 'White Place' might not help me, but it's all it knows. I throw the notebook back.

"How did you get here?"

It doesn't use the notebook. It reaches up and slips a hand under its tunic at the neck. Comes out with a necklace, something small and dark on a chain. From my good, safe, not-dead distance, I sonic it. The substance is not quite definable, but the purpose is matter-transportation. Which, for such a small little thing is really rather wonderful, but I'm not here to be impressed.

"That's yours," I tell it, "Where's the other end of the line?" You would expect the colloquial phrasing to confuse it, but _immediately_ it points. At my feet, or rather under them. Down by the coolant pipes. "Oh, no, not falling for that again." It tugs on its chain to show it can't go anywhere, can't damage anything. Which is true, as it goes. Slowly, not taking my eyes from it, I go down below the glass floor and cast the sonic over the floor.

And it detects that same strange substance it can do nothing about. Under my feet.

"That's where you came in?" It can't see me. I lean up the stairs and repeat myself. The Little Ghost nods. "Now. Tell me this. How do I go there?" And now it decides to get disobedient and shake its head. I walk up, as close to it as it dare, and lean down. "Tell me, or I will get the _rest_ of the people with two hearts, all the people who want to know why you killed their friends and family, do you understand?" It clings to the banister, too scared to nod or do anything, but it scrabbles my little notebook open and starts, not to write, but to draw. "Oi," I say, and snap my fingers and wave, until I have its attention. "And how to come back and all. Sneaky devil, I see you thinking that."

So it reaches back up again. This time under its hood. It takes out another, similar disc, which it must have been wearing as an earring.

So there are ears under there. They just don't work. The more I learn about it, the more humanoid the form comes to seem.

It gives me detailed instructions. I go back beneath the glass floor, wrap the necklace chain about my hand, and press the pendant disc into the one in the floor. They fit. Match together like jigsaw pieces, perfectly, and at the moment when they meet my stomach goes all funny. The feeling spreads gently to the rest of my insides. A bit like using a manipulator, only slower, more pleasant. It's a fading, wavy feeling. It's not that you feel like jelly, it's that you feel like jelly must feel. All wibbly-wobbly. Stable, only not.

And then there's no Tardis.

Then there's a white room. There is a box, and a little notebook in my hand with a drawing of a box. When I want to go back, I put the earring-disc in the box and hold on. Unless it's tricked me, but then again, didn't Captain Frankie say it wouldn't lie to me? Why do I trust Captain Frankie, I hardly know her…

The box by my side is too low down for my hand. It would be just the right height of the Little Ghost. I do not like the concept that this system might have been built around it.

Other than the box, the room is unremarkable. Until there is a hiss, and I become aware of a door, opening flush out of the wall. A door with a little round porthole of a window in it, beyond which there are Silents. Only a couple that I can see, but the suggestion of a crowd of them. Of more.

Counting back from five, I watch the door open, and have my suspicions confirmed. A crowd of them. Dozens of them, again.

I really should stop getting called General by people I don't know yet. That's what seems to trigger it.

Amongst them, this time, it isn't River, but Kovarian. I'd know that bloody eyepatch anywhere.

They start into the room, and anyway, I've finished my countdown, so I put the earring-disc into the white box.

Fading out is really rather nice when you know what to expect. And all the nicer because, as I go through it, I have Pond in my head, saying repeatedly and without explanation, 'It's not an eyepatch'. Do anything with a sweet little thought like that in your head and it can be pleasant. I wonder if the Little Ghost knows that, or what it thinks of. What is it that a crazed killer finds pleasant? Is there anything, any semblance whatever, like love or sweetness in its mind?

I miss Pond. That's what I'm thinking as I find myself back on the Tardis, find myself looking right up through the glass floor at the thing chained to the stairs. I miss Pond and I'm staring at the Little Ghost.

"So?" I find myself saying. "Tell me how to get there!"

The eyes behind the mask squint. It points, and I'm shocked to discover the little notebook in my hand.

"I've been." From the corner of my eye, it nods. It doesn't realize I wasn't addressing it; it wasn't even a question, it was a statement, and even as a question it would have been rhetorical. "I've already been."

It is deeply depressing to know that I'm getting used to these memory blanks. To the extent that, when they happen, they're don't really count as memory blanks at all, because I know what must have happened.

"You _work_ for them!" I cry, and stab an accusing finger at it. It cowers, but nods, and in the face of its honesty I have nothing to say. So I echo, "You work for them."

They took River as a baby, and they raised her into a thing they meant to kill me. They got that one a bit backward, bless their hearts. Not that they weren't very close to the mark. If _I_, on any topic and ever, was that close, I think I would find it very, very difficult to walk away. They took River, and they sent her back to me insane. And what is it that they have sent me now? What is it that sits there with the blood of oh God, so many, Time Lords on its hands?

"Send me back," I tell it. It shrugs, holds out its empty, open hands. "What! What's your excuse?" It stretches out to me and makes its 'writing' gesture again. I throw it the notebook.

"Disc not more," it writes to me. "Is zero."

"Discs. Can't travel without the discs." It nods. "You got me to use them all! How many times have we had this conversation!"

'Once,' it says, by raising a finger.

And the eyes are telling the truth.

And they told me it wouldn't lie to me. Captain Frankie, I mean. And River. River too.

"I remember the bit where I told you we had work to do. Do you remember that too?" It nods. "Good."

[A/N Hey again, ladies and gentlemen. It's closing-credits time for this episode and once again, I'm dying to know what you think. A) about what's already happened and b) about whether or not any more should follow on. Should the series continue, the Ponds will be making a more definite return and we'll be getting very close to the start of that big old war I was talking about before. Please, please, let me know, whatever way you can. I don't snatch out for reviews at the end of every chapter because once I've started, I finish, but it's always nice to get a bit of feedback at the end.

BTW, Madis, honey, I figure I know where you stand on this one. And I do feel I should give you a little shout, here in public, for being so one hundred percent lovely every step of it all, and for helping to bring me round a bit as regards Mrs Doctor. Hearts!

Anyway, lots of hearts and hugs to all who have followed and all who are here,

Sal.]


	12. A Brief Note Of Anger and Distaste

No! Don't _continue_ this nonsense! Who even are you? And how is it you can _shamelessly_ misappropriate 'my voice', if that's what you call it? For one, I do not sound like that. There's no eloquence, no intelligence, and you haven't even had me make any lists yet. I do lists all the time. If you're such a 'fan', you probably ought to know that. (I am implying, of course, that you don't know me at all. In case you'd missed that. Which I'm sure you had due to your patently obvious lower intelligence)

Do have _time_ to sit here and write this retort to your ludricrous insinuations about me and my 'adventures' (as you would call them. Some of us prefer to think of it as reponsibility, but what the hell. 'Adventures' better for the kids, is it? More ten-past-seven friendly, is it?)? No, not really. But these kind of lies are _dangerous_! What if you get it right? Had you thought about that? What if you write it before I've done it and they know I'm coming?

Which reminds me, just who do you think you are, telling tall tales about things that _never_ happened? Ended a couple of wars, yes, but never _started_ any! And I most certainly do not take prisoners. God's sake, you have to _feed_ them and take care of them and see that their rights are observed. I have companions to cause that amount of trouble.

As to the business of the scone, I shall not grace that with comment, except to say that vegetative matter holds no interest for a man of my erudition and education, not even as an experiment. No jokes about Miss Noble, please.

However, Miss Sally Garmonbozia, if indeed that is your real name which I very much doubt it is, neither am I blind. It is very clear to me that you would not be here, continuing this mendacious tripe with reckless abandon, carrying on regardless, if it wasn't for your so-called 'readers'. Really, people, now _War and Peace_, that's something to read. _Alice's Adventures In Wonderland_. _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ _The Gruffalo_, that's a good book. Go and read _The Gruffalo_, for the love of God, rather than filling your heads with this utterly ridiculous schlock!

And as for you, Mad Is Hatter (oh yes, very clever, well done you), just because they put 'twitterpated' in your little Oxford Dictionary doesn't make it a real word. Until Suzy Dent accepts it on Countdown, it will remain unaccepted on my Tardis, thank you very much. And that'll never happen, because it's got more than nine letters. So there.

Even if it was a word, I'm not it.

Miss Ruth (and I shall call you that, for I quite question just how random you really are at the heart of you. Do you, for instance, favour any unusual headgear? No, I thought not). Firstly, stay out of my head. Secondly, stop encouraging her.

In short, ladies and gentlemen, _please_, leave me be. Or at least get it _right_, but mostly just let me go in peace. I'll go away and never come back, if that's what you want.

Sincerely yours,

The Doctor.

P.S. Congratulations to the author on her password. Took me half an hour and three years of her internet history. Nothing to do with me, you see... Well played, Garmonbozia, well played. The battle, of course, not the _preposterous, made-up war!_


	13. Roman Noir Preview

_The street outside the office window is quiet. All the streets are quiet, and it shows on the books. The empty, empty books. I haven't had a job in weeks. It's that never-ending rain. It turns the roads into rivers and the gutters into rapids and washes all the dirt and trash away. It gives back the neon off the signs and in the dark the world glows that rainbow daylight. _

_ And it keeps people off the streets. When they're all stuck indoors, they don't lie or cheat each other and there's no murders. Nobody needs a cheap, private gumshoe like me in weather like this._

_ I take the whiskey bottle out of the bottom desk drawer. All but empty. And the cash in the top drawer says there won't be another for a while. I pour out half of what I've got and save the rest for a rainy day. Or a sunny one._

_ Should I go home? Probably. What is there for me here, without a lead, without a job to have a lead on?_

_ Her._

_ There's her._

_ I watched them put it up this morning, struggling against the downpour. Didn't do too great a job; the glue wouldn't stay and the great huge sheets are slipping out of place and bubbling and starting to peel already. But it's still her, y'know, the jigsaw appearance doesn't make a damn sight different on the point that it's her._

_ On the billboard opposite my window, the ad for her latest movie. Maybe I'll go, maybe not. Maybe I'll just sit here and pretend I have this beautiful thing all to myself, filling my window, looking in at me. The wide, pure face. The sun has never spoiled it and that makes me almost thankful for the rain. The round, warm eyes, honest and unafraid. And the full, firm lines of her mouth. On the poster they've painted her up red, but you see her in the movies and you know that's not natural. Natural she's all shades of earth, of neutral, of the real beautiful world._

_ Amelia Pond, the movie star. _

_ I know there are other men, and that they dream of her, of that picture, of her in her movies. Good for them. Good for them that can dream and let it go when it's time to wake up. _

_ Me, I pull down the blind and turn my back to the window. Knock back that measly half-measure that was all I could spare for myself. Takes the edge off. Dulls down the dream of her. _

_ I should go home, maybe. Yeah. I should go home. _

_ I go to the door. Put on my coat and hat. Look around to see I've left nothing behind before I realize there's nothing to leave. But that look around means that for a moment there's silence in the room. Silence in the room that lets me hear the rain. That's a sound that faded out weeks ago. You stop noticing these things. And the low, synthetic wail of a mock saxophone from the bar down the street._

_ And heels. High heels._

_ I hear high heels, coming in off those deserted, flooded streets._

_ On instinct, I turn the lights back on. Hang up my coat and hat again. Leave the door unlocked and light a cigarette at the desk. Try and look affluent, like I've got cases on that require attention. And listen to the heels coming up the stairs, down the hallway, right to my door._

_ Through the glass, a silhouette, all curves. And a toss of the head I almost think I recognize, but it's other, braver men that dare to dream that dream. _

_ She knocks._

_ "Come on in."_

_ The door opens and there she stands. Looking lost and uncertain, in a grey chequered skirt suit pulled in in all the right places. It takes me a moment to believe it. It's only when she tosses her hair back from her face again. All that beautiful, scarlet hair. _

_ I stand up. Round the desk and pull out the other chair. Say more softly this time, "Come on in."_

_ "Thank you." She manages a half-smile, delicately seats herself, takes a cigarette when I offer it. The angle of her face when she brings it up to be lit is exquisite. "I take it you know who I am?"_

_ I reach over and lift up the blind again, so she can see the billboard. "Yeah."_

_ "Oh God, put that away…" I oblige. "You've no idea what it is to see yourself looking back, everywhere you go."_

_ "Well, you're right there, sister…"_

_ She straightens up then. Steels herself, like she's not looking forward to this. "I need a case _solved_," she tells me. "Fast. And discreet. I don't want this all over the papers. They tell me you're the man for the job."_

_ Am I? Now there's a question. It's not every night a movie star walks into your office and says to you that they need you. That they've come straight to you. It's not every night the woman of your dreams walks in and asks for your help. The trouble is, can I do it? Can I put myself through that, and solve the case, and when it's over, say goodbye to her? The books might be empty, but that doesn't mean I am. And a man can empty out fast in this down, if he doesn't consider these questions very carefully._

_ But she sees me considering. And this look comes over her face, angry and hurt and disappointed at the same time. Desperate, maybe. "Well you _are_ Rory Williams, aren't you? You are the great detective? They told me your name, they said you could help." She needs me. She's come to me tonight because she needs me._

_ "And you're Amelia Pond," I smile. "You're the movie star. What can I do for you?" She relaxes. Exhales smoke in a sigh and seems to finally let go of whatever pain she walked in here with, whatever chases her in off the street._

_ "Somebody stole my ring, Mr Williams."_

_ "Call me Roman," I tell her. "Everybody does."_

_ "…_Roman_…" _

[I eat two apples a day and none of them have smiley faces carved into them. I'll be back Wednesday/Thursday.]


End file.
